Nupur Sharma of ABVP is new DUSU president (Lead)

New Delhi, Sep 6 (IANS) Nupur Sharma of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was Saturday elected the president of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU), which was dominated by the Congress’ National Students Union of India (NSUI). Sharma, a law student, won by a margin of 1,639 votes, defeating her rival Sonia Sapra of the NSUI.

The rest of the key posts of the students’ union - vice president, secretary and joint secretary - were won by the NSUI, which had last year swept all the four seats.

For the term 2008-09, Manohar Nagar of the NSUI was elected vice president as he defeated Vasu Rukhar of the ABVP by a margin of 600 votes.

Amit Chaudhary became secretary after he beat Anupriya Yadav of the ABVP by 300 votes.

The DUSU elections, held Friday, made for a colourful spectacle as the cub politicians and their supporters campaigned till the last moment in hope to woo the voters in their favour.

Even as cops were seen across the campus and CCTV cameras were put up in strategic locations to monitor the election process, campaigners shouted slogans and distributed pamphlets through the day.

Students voted in two phases - in the regular colleges the polling was between 8 a.m. to 12 in the noon and in the evening colleges it was between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

A total of 36 polling booths were set up across the varsity and although the turnout was only 35 percent, it did not deter the campaigners’ spirits.

“After all, its the majority that we fight for,” said one of the campaigners, Rahul Dholakia of the ABVP.

The results, which were declared Saturday, saw a lot of celebration in the parties offices in the campus.

An obviously elated Sharma who won a total of 10,345 votes, said: “I will work for the benefit of the students. Besides my own work agenda, I will work on the issues which have been taken up by my predecessor Amrita Bahari.”